We are reproducing the below interview of Bobby Healy, the founder of Irish delivery drone company Manna Drones. The interview first appeared in Zag Daily, so shout out to them.
As a company founded in 2019, Manna is very much in its start-up phase, where they are still injecting more capital than the business is making. But with the company opening up more and more hubs – the most recent being in Cork – the future shows a lot of promise.
“Manna air delivery is coming to Cork,” Healy announced last week, later explaining that he was excited to be part of a drone logistics business that was at the start of a long-term growth journey.
The company aims to positively disrupt the food delivery industry by eliminating the need for human driving personnel and reducing carbon emissions.
The news to expand delivery services to Cork follow the announcement that Manna had raised $30m in new funding recently.
At the time, Healy told SiliconRepublic.com that the funds will go towards enabling Manna to accelerate its goal of making drone delivery the “safest, most sustainable and most convenient choice for communities worldwide”.
And while they wait for the day they break even, the company’s latest accounts show that the firm's pre-tax losses in 2023 increased by 24.5 percent to €12.33m due to start-up costs.
New accounts filed by Manna Drones Ltd show that the company’s €12.33m pre-tax for 2023 followed a pre-tax loss of €9.9m for 2022.
The company recorded modest revenues of €20,439 in 2023 ahead of its launch of drone deliveries in the Dublin area in 2024.
"Since 2023, we have launched multiple commercial locations, including Blanchardstown in 2024, which now delivers to 42pc of households in the area and has received high consumer satisfaction ratings,” Healy says.
“We’re also operating in Finland and executing a broader expansion plan across Europe, supported by international partnerships with Just Eat and Wolt (Doordash’s European brand).
"We are proud to be the first drone company in the world to achieve per-flight profitable unit economics at scale, a significant milestone in aerial logistics.
"Our new hub in Glasnevin serves as the backbone of Aerial Logistics Support for our European operations, and we are now reaching up to one million people in Dublin through our identified delivery zones.
"We also look forward to announcing our first location outside Dublin, in Cork.
"With a growing team of 120 staff, continuous innovation in drone technology and software orchestration over the last few years, and the backing of top-tier investors and Enterprise Ireland following our recent funding announcement, Manna is well-positioned to scale rapidly and bring faster, more efficient air delivery to users—empowering retail businesses to grow and thrive."
Now, on to the interview.
Bobby Healy is a self-proclaimed “uninspirable Irishman,” but his track record suggests otherwise.
From coding Nintendo games as a teenager to launching six successful ventures, he’s built a career out of solving complex problems with technology.
Now, as CEO and founder of Manna Air Delivery, he’s tackling last-mile delivery with autonomous drones.
The idea for Manna Air Delivery was conceived in a suburb of Dublin, where Healy experienced the challenge of getting reliable deliveries first-hand. After watching a delivery driver idling in a diesel car outside a chip shop for hours, he set out to find a greener and more efficient solution.
Six years later, Manna Air Delivery is delivering thousands of meals a day, partnering with giants like Just Eat and DoorDash. In this interview, Bobby talks to Zag Air about scaling drone delivery, the problem of public perception and why Ireland’s ‘goldilocks economy’ offers a competitive advantage.
You started out in gaming and software. How did you end up running a drone delivery company?
I’m a tech guy first and foremost. I started out developing video games for Nintendo, but I’ve been launching companies since 1989. Manna is my sixth venture. The idea came from a personal frustration. I live in a Dublin suburb called Rathfarnham, home to about 35,000 people, and getting anything reliably delivered is a nightmare. And it’s not just me, this is a massive problem across suburban Europe. There are 300 million of us living in areas where last-mile delivery is expensive, slow, and inefficient.
We do food delivery, of course, but the problem is much bigger than that. I’ve always been drawn to building difficult things, particularly in tech, and electric flying robots are extremely challenging, not just from an engineering standpoint but also in terms of regulatory approvals. When you look at the scale of the problem, it’s enormous: there are 4.5 billion food deliveries every year, with 1.2 billion in the UK alone, and many of these struggle with cost and efficiency. We’re solving a massive last-mile delivery issue with a complex technological solution that, when scaled, could be transformative for the planet.
Was sustainability part of your motivation from the start?
Not initially. I’ve built software platforms for years, and sustainability wasn’t a factor, tech is largely neutral in that regard. But Manna changed that. Before starting, I spoke with local business owners, including one who runs a chip shop in Ballinteer.
Her delivery driver was sitting outside for hours in a diesel car, making two deliveries an hour. That’s when I realised suburban food delivery is dominated by cars because distances are too long for bikes. That’s terrible for the environment.
Our drones can replace those cars. We fly in 97% of Irish weather, and once people switch to drone delivery, they don’t go back. Our CO₂ footprint is lower than cars, lower than e-bikes, and we’re working towards full carbon neutrality. But let’s be honest, green investors still care about financial viability first.
If you can’t make the numbers work, no one’s funding you just because you’re sustainable.
How do you persuade businesses to ditch road-based delivery for drones?
You don’t convince the small guy. You convince the big one. We’ve just launched with Just Eat, and they get it, because for them, this is about cost. Drone delivery will drive the marginal cost down to cents per trip, compared to the €6–7 it costs today in Europe. Smaller takeaways aren’t thinking about drone tech.
They’re thinking about staffing and rent. So they come on board when platforms like Just Eat and DoorDash integrate us. It’s a slow rollout, people keep asking when we’ll reach their town, but realistically, the top 10% of Europe will have access in three to five years. Everyone else? More like a decade. Scaling takes time.
Who are your biggest competitors, and how has the landscape changed?
I don’t really see it as competition. With five and a half billion deliveries a year, there’s room for plenty of us. The closest comparison is Google Wing. They’re mainly in the US but have done trials in Ireland and Texas. Amazon has a drone delivery program, but it’s struggling. And they started in the wrong place, parcel delivery. No one needs their new phone case in 10 minutes. But food? That’s perishable. That needs to be fast. That’s where the real opportunity is.”
You’ve raised $65 million so far. How did you approach funding?
A lot of money has gone into urban air mobility—flying taxis and all that. I’ve never bought into that vision. The physics and economics don’t work. Battery energy density isn’t there. And certification? It’s a nightmare. It takes 10–15 years and billions of dollars to get approval to fly humans.
The industry hasn’t been honest about how hard this is. Manna is different. We secured regulatory approval to fly autonomously over dense populations in just four years. That’s lightning fast in aviation terms.
Our biggest competitive advantage is being in Ireland, it’s a goldilocks economy. The government is pro-business, and our regulator is the largest in Europe for aviation. They don’t make it easy, but they’re engaged and willing to iterate quickly, which lets us move faster than companies dealing with the FAA’s slower processes in the US.
Plus, Ireland’s weather is perfect for testing—we get all four seasons in a single day, which has helped us refine our aircraft in real-world conditions.
Speaking of regulation, how will Manna scale internationally?
Europe is relatively straightforward. Our license covers the entire EU. The UK has just adopted the SORA methodology, which should speed up approvals there. The US is another story. The FAA’s regulations aren’t designed for autonomous operations.
They need a new framework, Part 108, but it’s been delayed repeatedly. At best, the US is four years behind Europe. The only way they catch up fast is through an executive order, but the FAA is not known for moving quickly. So we’re focusing on Europe for now.
However, one thing I always mention is how Europe needs to step up its support for deep-tech companies. The capital and ambition available in the US is far greater, and Europe, particularly the EU, could do much more to support its indigenous deep-tech sector.
While we’re doing okay, it’s still not at the level of support you see in the US or China. I think that’s crucial for Europe if we want to compete globally.
Consumer perception plays a role, too. Have attitudes toward drones changed?
Yes, but the word ‘drone’ is still a problem, it’s tied to military use. When people think drones, they think Ukraine, Gaza, Afghanistan. That’s not great for us. That said, adoption rates are through the roof. In Dublin, we deliver to 42 percent of eligible households.
Our Net Promoter Score (NPS) is in the high 80s, sometimes even 90s. For context, Apple’s NPS is 76. Once people try drone delivery, they love it. Of course, we can’t ignore the darker side of the conversation.
When people turn on the news, they see drones used in war zones. But in the end, drones are just a technology. The challenge for us is to make sure we stay part of the right narrative.
Are you considering other applications for your drones, such as in agriculture or medical delivery?
Medical delivery is definitely of interest. We can already fly in dense urban areas, so hospital deliveries, like sending samples to labs, could be a key use case. Most non-patient journeys outside of hospitals involve transporting samples or documents to labs, which often contain high-value equipment. In Dublin alone, we spend £16 million a year on taxis for these types of deliveries.
That said, last-mile deliveries for commerce, such as food or groceries, are a larger market for us. By the end of this year, we’ll be able to handle nearly two million deliveries annually in Dublin. Many of those will occur at night, so the aircraft are less busy during the day.
This opens up the opportunity to explore other use cases. It’s not about being overly ambitious, but about keeping the aircraft busy with steady demand, similar to how a low-cost airline operates.”
I’m interested in your extreme weather testing in Finland. Could you tell me more about that?
It wasn’t intentional. We were in Finland because it’s where DoorDash’s European brand, Wolt, is based. Before committing, we checked if our aircraft could handle the extreme conditions—temperatures as low as -20°C, snow, ice, and thick fog. Fog is particularly tricky because it obstructs visibility, making it difficult for drones that rely on cameras for positioning.
The testing helped us assess the frequency of snow and fog, and whether we could manage it. It was also an opportunity to test our physics model in snow, which we hadn’t flown in before. We also examined battery performance in low temperatures.
Our batteries are kept in a warm charging cupboard until take-off, so we only worry about their performance in the 60 seconds before flight. The testing has been successful, and we’ve validated our assumptions in the real world, which is more valuable than wind tunnel testing.
What’s next for Manna?
This year, we’re aiming for 1.5 to 2 million deliveries run-rate in Ireland. We’re expanding in Europe and launching in the UK soon. As for partnerships, our Just Eat partnership is already live in Dublin, offering drone delivery through their app.
We also have a major partnership with DoorDash Vault in Europe, and another delivery company in the UK and Ireland, which will go live in April with around 200,000 deliveries.
The biggest milestone so far? Getting our SAIL3 regulatory license, that was a game-changer. But every day is a new milestone. Some forward, some backward. That’s how it goes. If I had to pick one, it would definitely be the regulatory permissions.
Is there anyone outside of Manna who you would credit for driving the drone sector forward or for inspiring you personally?
I wouldn’t say anyone inspired me, I’m a deeply uninspireable man. That being said I do credit the Wing team and particularly Andrew Patton, who now works with me. He ran the Wing strategy team for five years and introduced me to them. The Wing team, in general, is a great credit to Google and X.
They’re largely unrecognised for the excellent job they’ve done in drone delivery, and although they’re competitors, I look up to them. As for inspiration, it’s more about the technology itself. I’m genuinely excited about AI, especially large language models, and how they’re changing our work.